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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481471">Occupational Hazard</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium'>Liquid_Lyrium</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angel and Demon True Forms (Good Omens), Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Bittersweet Ending, Blasphemy, Crowley at Swordpoint, Discorporation (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Kiss, First Time, Gift Fic, Hereditary Enemies to Lovers, Hopeful Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Jealous Aziraphale (Good Omens), Jealousy, M/M, Other, Pining, Repressed Aziraphale (Good Omens), Temporary Character Death, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, Thou Shalt Be Gay for this background character Or Thy Money Back, and also, discorporated Crowley, promptposal 2020, the Metaphysical Ordeal of being Known</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 03:27:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,751</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481471</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liquid_Lyrium/pseuds/Liquid_Lyrium</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale is forced to face some uncomfortable realizations after catching Crowley facing off with the Archangel of War and Wrath.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Best Aziraphale and Crowley, Ixnael’s Recommendations, Our Own Side, Promptposal</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Thou Shalt Not Kill</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoxNoctua/gifts">NoxNoctua</a>.</li>



    </ul><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Crowley is usually saying something to make someone angry.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I was paired with Nox for the GO Events Server prom event! It was a pairing meant to be as we release our stuff in a fashionably late chill fashion and also how sympatico we ended up being!</p><p>I decided to tie together some of Nox's favorite things:<br/>Hurt/comfort, Crowley at swordpoint, Anxious/messy Aziraphale, and Crowley taking care of Aziraphale.</p><p>Happy prom!!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b> <em>Proverbs 15:3 </em> </b> <em> The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good. </em></p><p>There is a blade at Crowley’s chin. Pressing just at the spot where the jaw bone fuses together. Where it splits apart when Crowley slips into his more snake-like tendencies. His skull is tipped all the way back, long hair pulled into a braid, leaving his neck bared and on full display. Aziraphale can see the tension in the curve of it. Follow the captivating undulation of Crowley’s Adam’s apple as he swallows. Thin skin over vulnerable flesh.</p><p>The angel at the other end of the sword, isn’t him.</p><p>The betrayal slices through his ribs, sharp as the holy sword pinning Crowley captive.</p><p>Aziraphale’s blood is hot and searing in his veins. Like each vessel is suddenly conducting electricity through the hemoglobin his human form is saddled with; branding him beneath his skin.</p><p>Camael is formidable, perfect, and entirely unexpected in this corner of the world. Aziraphale thought the Archangel of War and Wrath would be overseeing her pet project. The Crusades had gone over extremely well with Head Office—despite Aziraphale's conscientious objections—and had made Aziraphale's life rather miserable. Enough so that he was finally willing to agree to Crowley’s arrangement.</p><p>He can almost feel the great expanse of the seraph's wings in the aether, crowding the dimension beyond their corporations in a way Aziraphale could never hope to match. Six wings—brilliant, scarlet, gold, and nearly infinite. Those wings could blot out the sky, cover entire mountain ranges in their shadow. The rim of each feather a kaleidoscope of grinning knife edges.</p><p>Camael curls her lip as Crowley’s mouth moves, his jaw tight. Her hair is nearly the same shade as the demon’s, shot through with blinding, metallic gold, rolling down to her waist in perfect unfettered waves. The sort of beauty that humanity hasn’t learned to capture yet on canvas. <em> Crowley you idiot. </em>He doesn’t know what the demon is saying, but he can guess that it’s making Camael angry.</p><p>Crowley is usually saying something to make someone angry.</p><p>The serpent lies there, spilled at her feet. Insouciant and defiant as ever, and Aziraphale aches as his heart clenches at the strange intimacy laid out before him.</p><p>For just a moment, he feels as if he’s the interloper here. Even though <em> Camael </em> is the one intruding on something delicate with all the grace of a siege engine. <em> He has been </em> my <em> hereditary enemy for thousands of years now, I can </em> handle <em> him, thank you very much! I’m not an idiot! </em></p><p>It feels oddly personal to see Crowley like this. Intrusive. <em>Why has he never been at my feet before?</em> <em>Should not all creatures fall before angels in awe and reverence?</em></p><p>He shivers as the tip of the sword trails down Crowley’s throat. A shallow line of red beading along his skin. Aziraphale suddenly registers an ache in his jaw, the sound of his teeth grinding together. The principality presses his brow against the elm he’s leaning against, suddenly dizzy with <em> want</em>. With fear. With helplessness.</p><p><em> This is what he really is</em>, another voice in his head whispers. <em> You’ve never really known him as he truly is. What he’s really like. She’s taken this from you. This is what he really is underneath the lies and conniving. This is what he looks like as an adversary. </em> Aziraphale feels his breathing pick up, like he’s running instead of standing still. His hand curls into a fist. </p><p>The sword catches fire, and it finds its way to the corner of Crowley’s jaw. The flames lick harmlessly over his skin. Caressing and dancing along a path Aziraphale has never dared travel. The serpent almost tips into the warmth like a cat into a friendly hand, and the only thing stopping him from stepping forward to shout at the demon is the smallest sliver of self-preservation.</p><p>There’s an absence at his hip he hasn’t felt in eons. A missing weight he’s only aware of now. He flexes his hand. His fingers restless, his palm achingly empty. <em> She’s known him for less than ten minutes and she knows him better than you ever can. </em></p><p>He blinks hotly and shakes his head. Trying to dislodge the other voice. <em> That’s not true</em>. <em> No one can ever know him as I know him. </em></p><p>Camael’s eyes flick along Crowley’s body, a mirror-bright polish that Excalibur would be envious of.</p><p>Gold eyes hold that steel gaze, unflinching.</p><p>There’s just the tiniest curl to the demon’s pinky into the damp earth, the smallest tell that he’s afraid. The angel feels sick to his stomach.</p><p>And then the Archangel smites him; the lightest flick of her wrist across his throat, and Aziraphale gasps.</p><p>He is only aware of the lightning gathering in the clouds above them as soon as it starts arcing towards the ground. His heart leaps into his throat as he realizes its intended target. For a moment, as time slows down, Aziraphale wonders if he could actually destroy a being so much more powerful than he is. Perhaps, if only because she couldn't possibly see it coming. Still, the hairs on his arms stand on end, and there's a metallic taste that coats his mouth. At the last second, he diverts the bolt from its course, and it strikes the husk of Crowley’s lifeless corporation, leaving behind nothing but a smear of black ash on the ground. An explosion of soot.</p><p>The Archangel turns smartly, her hair glowing like the embers of a sacked city, but then she relaxes as she takes in the sight of Aziraphale.</p><p>His hands are trembling, and he tries not to look at the spot that used to house Crowley. His body. His…</p><p>“He was well taken care of, principality, but I thank you for the thought.” The representative of Divine Wrath extinguishes her blade and sheathes it. Spotless and shining.</p><p><em> I almost attacked an Archangel. </em> He’s shivering from head to toe. He can’t stop it as she gets nearer. “I… I know that demon.” He looks anywhere but at her, finds it harder and harder to look away from the scorched earth. “He’s a-a wily, cunning… can’t be too careful with him. The-the old snake. Wouldn’t put it past him to, to booby-trap his corporation somehow.”</p><p>Camael tilts her head, and studies him until he stops babbling. “Aziraphale, is it not? Principality? Guardian of the Eastern Gate?”</p><p>“Y-yes!” He squeaks, hands shaking as he laces his fingers together. His chest shudders a little, and his vision is starting to blur.</p><p>“I see. You say you know that demon?”</p><p>Aziraphale nods, his eyes threatening to leak, his anger burned out of him. “O-oh yes. Many, many run-ins. Dastardly… wicked thing. Keeps me-keeps me on my toes only, oh, I-I-I hope this won’t… upset my, my knowledge of him. I have become exceedingly, exceedingly good at predicting his, his movements, but now…”</p><p>“But now?” Camael finally prompts, utterly unmoved by his distress.</p><p>“Well, no one else has ever discorporated him but me before!” Aziraphale’s voice squeaks. Strictly speaking it’s not a complete lie. He’s only discorporated Crowley twice. Once was an accident and the other at Crowley’s request. Something about tax fraud and destabilizing the Roman economy. It had been at a rather advantageous time for him, as he was up for a performance review.</p><p>This doesn’t change the fact that Crowley has, in fact, discorporated at the hands of horses and other natural disasters, but those didn’t really count.</p><p>Horses are nasty, vicious things.</p><p>“Well, with any luck he’ll stay discorporated a little longer than usual. When I smite them, I smite them <em> good</em>,” she smiles like a shark and Aziraphale barely chokes down a quiet sob. “Oh? What’s this?”</p><p>Aziraphale hastily brushes his face with his sleeve. “Oh, just, just the excitement, I’ll wager. It’s been several years since I’ve had a-a run in with Cr-with that demon.”</p><p>For a moment, Camael softens, and it feels like the fist squeezing around his adrenal glands has finally loosened its grip. Aziraphale almost falls to his knees. She gives him a sweet smile, full of grace.</p><p>“Oh Aziraphale,” the Archangel coos softly, “I understand.”</p><p>An iceberg has muscled his heart out of the way and hangs somewhere behind his lungs.</p><p>“Y-you do?” Aziraphale tries to remember how to breathe. Then tries to remember that he doesn’t need to breathe at all.</p><p>Camael’s hand comes up to cup his cheek. Her fingers are solid and unyielding, her nails like dagger points against the softness of his corporation’s cheek. The pad of her thumb sweeps his lashline as though trying to scrub the tears from creation.</p><p>“How lovely,” though it sounds calculating, “that you have such compassion for all Her creatures. Even the Fallen.” Camael’s smile turns hungry and vicious, “See that you lose that before Armageddon, dear Aziraphale. It won’t do if you fall to pieces at the end of the world.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hi im extremely gay for Camael ty. also Camael/Michael for the office power couple and War is their adopted daughter. ty</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Thou Shalt Not Covet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He wonders if he could reach somewhere inside the stuff that makes him <i>Aziraphale,</i> beneath the human trappings of his corporation, and fix himself.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Have some messy, anxious, yearning Aziraphale. As a treat.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b> <em>Deuteronomy 7:2 </em> </b> <em> …and when the LORD your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. </em></p><p>If Aziraphale were the type of being to sleep, he wouldn't have slept for days after. He wonders if sleeping would inflict him with fewer nightmares.</p><p>If Aziraphale were smarter he'd be roaring drunk somewhere. Somewhere where he didn’t have to think about what he’d done and what he’d almost done.</p><p>But he is an angel, and he has observed enough of guilt and penance to know how to deal with the crushing disappointment of being less than perfect. It means cutting himself off from the Host—as much as he can, anyway—and finding solitude. Finding someplace quiet, because his thoughts are too loud. Somewhere he can sit in contemplation until he either can’t stand the noise in his head or finds himself suitably soothed and generous enough to extend some self-forgiveness. Or, as is most often the case, until he has found a way to bend his thoughts and deeds so that they fit neatly into the box of what Heaven has ordained as befitting an angel.</p><p>His feet had taken him to the place that used to be Thrace. In the wilderness he found an ancient temple. It wasn’t one of Hers, but it still has the taste of something holy on the air. Reverent and quiet. The place is a ruin, fallen into disrepair, slowly being reclaimed by the earth. Forgotten by humanity, it seems. Autumn is here. The days are unseasonably warm, but the nights are cool and crisp. The trees are crowned with red and gold and atop the columns and crumbled statuary, fallen leaves gather like particularly noisy blankets.</p><p>Aziraphale finds the place that was once an altar. The smell of iron permeates the air. If he closes his eyes, he can smell something like stale oil and burnt offerings and blood. Hidden amongst the loam and leaf litter are things that used to be swords and shields. Aziraphale shivers and while he can’t remember what they called her through the ages, he knows that War was once worshiped here.</p><p>Perhaps it is the most appropriate place to contemplate the near-annihilation of one’s superior officer.</p><p>So Aziraphale rolls out his bedroll, so he has somewhere to sit that isn’t covered in moss or plant matter, and he tries to achieve the sort of inner peace and contemplation that really ought to be effortless for an angel.</p><p><em> I almost attacked an Archangel. </em>Not just any Archangel. The one perhaps most likely to hollow him out and hammer out his bones into a breastplate of righteousness.</p><p><em> Why did you do that? You almost spoiled everything. You were nearly caught! Stupid, Aziraphale, stupid! Clumsy, ridiculous, obvious! </em>Aziraphale bites his lip. He’s not sure if it’s been four days or fourteen, but he keeps coming back to the moment he called down the lightning. He was oddly fortunate Camael was there. She could explain his use of such a miracle, justify it to the other Archangels, under the circumstances. Wave away the paperwork like a knight’s sword cleaves through a peasant.</p><p>That isn’t even the worst part. The worst part is how deeply the image of Crowley’s lifeless body being struck from the earth sticks in his psyche. <em> That could have been you, striking the life from his body. Should have been you. It’s everything you should want. You’ve been enemies with him for, for millennia now! It shouldn’t be bothersome. </em></p><p>But it is. Aziraphale has always been a terrible soldier, and it’s only a matter of time before Heaven finds out. How many centuries of shirking his responsibilities will it take before they notice? Before they realize he’s not capable of doing what needs to be doing? What will happen to Crowley then?</p><p><em> Why are you worried about him? He clearly has no regard for himself! Stupid idiot snake! I’m sure he’s been smitten by lots of other angels and he's never bothered to tell you! Serves him right for going around and doing as he pleases all the time. Trying to go against the Great Plan. </em>Aziraphale slowly lets out a breath.</p><p>If only his anger was enough to drown out that pesky compassion. Part of him aches that he can’t get rid of it. It would be <em> easier</em>. Easier to get along with his fellows, easier to trust in The Plan. Easier to fit into that box.</p><p>Instead he’s crying over a demon who was stupid enough to cross paths with an Archangel of Divine Wrath and mouth off to her.</p><p>There’s a twist in his stomach as he <em> knows </em> those thoughts are wrong and unfair to Crowley. It festers and clashes with his ethereal nature.</p><p>“I should have given you a funeral,” Aziraphale whispers aloud. It feels like wax dripping along his cheeks. Hot as the candles he lit for guidance. “Buried you or burned you on a pyre not… not <em> that</em>.” His heart is as much a ruin as this place. Aching and splintering apart.</p><p>He wonders if he could reach somewhere inside the stuff that makes him <em> Aziraphale</em>, beneath the human trappings of his corporation, and fix himself. Scrape away the undesirable bits like errant pen strokes on parchment. Rewrite the heterodoxy at his core, and be done with it. Camael made it sound so easy. Surely somewhere, in his heart of hearts, there’s a line of sacred text he can edit. Some mistranscribed words he can redact to form himself into a proper angel.</p><p>It’s tempting.</p><p>But he thinks about a demon with long hair and bare feet, cramped into an ark and letting tiny hands busy themselves making braids. He thinks about the flash of teeth when the Serpent of Eden asks pointed questions for which Aziraphale has no answer for other than faith. He thinks about long fingers and amphoras of wine. Sticky fingertips swiping the last bite of honeyed figs from his bowl. He thinks about a field of grain after dusk and golden eyes lit up by a firefly. The tiny thing cradled so gently in wide, pale palms—and then a terrible, bone-chilling scream up at the sky. Of a dozen smiles designed to vex, a dozen more designed to hurt, and still a dozen more designed to disguise delight. He thinks about all the times he’s been dragged—willingly—along to the theatre; to see something funny, to shake off the dour weight of heavenly responsibility. He thinks about the brush of a shoulder against his, and the conspiratorial glance they both understand to mean: <em> Humans, eh? What will they think of next? </em> And he thinks—no, he <em> imagines </em> Crowley turning to him and asking <em> why? </em></p><p>Aziraphale is glad the heart in his chest isn’t necessary. It stops beating for several minutes as he asks himself the same thing, to his deep shame.</p><p>
  <em> Why would you want to get rid of that? </em>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>“Of course,” Aziraphale says bitterly. He can taste something hot and acid at the back of his throat. <i>When a mere principality discorporates you that’s nothing. No special treatment there.</i></p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><b> <em>Romans 7:7 </em> </b> <em> What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said,“You shall not covet.” </em></p><p><em> “There </em> you are! Took me long enough to find you. What’re you doing here in the arse end of nowhere?”</p><p>Aziraphale sucks in a breath, hands more wringing than clasped in prayer. He isn’t expecting to see Crowley so soon. He isn’t ready for it. Hasn’t spent enough time wearing his thoughts away like a thumb against a worry stone. Twisting them like the ring on his finger, until they fray apart </p><p>“What are you doing here?” He’s trying to be outraged, shocked, properly scandalized. Instead he’s just dazed.</p><p>“Oh that’s nice,” Crowley sniffs. His appearance has changed. Fashionably draped in a kaftan of red Byzantine silk, patterned in gold rich enough to make the emperor himself envious and black leather shoes, gilded on the top. The medallion sitting on his chest, suspended from an equally ostentatious chain, is a serpent coiled in on itself in ever undulating knots. Not quite an ouroboros. His hair however, is completely different. It’s cropped short, barely coming down past his earlobes. A hint of curl as his bangs sweep along his forehead, tinted glasses perched on his nose, the stems brushed with gold leaf.</p><p>Aziraphale realizes a moment later that Crowley is waiting expectantly. Presumably staring at him from behind those lenses. He must have missed whatever it was Crowley said after that.</p><p>“I’m sorry?”</p><p>“I said, ‘I come all this way and track you down to let you know I’m topside again, and this is the greeting I get!’” He sounds just as put out and irritated as Aziraphale imagines he was on the first delivery.</p><p>Aziraphale just shakes his head, “I wasn’t… I didn’t think that I’d see you.” <em> So soon. </em></p><p>Usually it takes Crowley years to come back after being discorporated.</p><p>“Well, as it turns out,” Crowley stretches, and Aziraphale’s eyes are drawn to the belt perfectly cinched at that slender waist, “I have <em> hustle.</em>”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“I have hustle! Lined up and did the hora with an Archangel!” The demon does an approximation of a jig. “Very impressive to the higher ups.”</p><p>“Of course,” Aziraphale says bitterly. He can taste something hot and acid at the back of his throat. <em> When a mere principality discorporates you that’s nothing. No special treatment there. Years and years to get a new body then. I expect it happens all the time. Soldiers in Her army taking down demons. </em></p><p>“Turns out Camael has some fans down below. So, all I really had to do was describe the event over and over in lurid detail until my bosses had enough for their infernal spank bank.”</p><p>Aziraphale blinks owlishly. “I’m sorry, their <em> what? </em>”</p><p>“Y’know. Their sordid fantasies!” Crowley makes a lewd gesture with his hand before he shifts his posture and lets his voice take on a raspy tone. “Tell us again, Crowley, <em> slower</em>!” He slips back into his easy, devil-may-care stance, “Yes, alright Lord Dagon. So, no shit, there I was, sword at my throat, Archangel at my feet…”</p><p>“You’re <em> joking</em>,” Aziraphale says, aghast. Something hot, like magma boils deep in his stomach.</p><p>"Not as much as you might think." Crowley mutters darkly. "I'm sure the fact that it's me was an added bonus for them."</p><p>Aziraphale tries very hard to banish the thought of Crowley's demonic overlords masturbating to the thought of his discorporation. That molten earth at his core burrows like a snake through his limbs.</p><p>"Well that's… I'm glad you were able to return so quickly," Aziraphale says stiffly. It takes everything in him not to ask how it compares with the times Aziraphale had banished him. <em> Was it better with her? Will you tell me what it felt like in lurid detail? </em>Aziraphale tries not to think of what it might feel like to take his Effort in hand and think about Crowley discorporating. He swallows against the memory of a lean neck and defiant eyes.</p><p>
  <em> What did it feel like? Was it more satisfying? Did it feel right to have an adversary who would kill you without compunction?  </em>
</p><p>"Thanks," Crowley says with a crooked grin. "By the by, nice touch with the lightning after. Really helped me sell the whole thing."</p><p>Aziraphale squeaks in utter dismay. "You, you knew about that!?" His voice comes out as an unbecoming screech, and Crowley does him the favor of not pointing out the sudden flight of birds in their immediate environs.</p><p>"Oh sure, first thing out of Dagon's mouth really. Displeased at my reckless treatment of favours from our dark lord and master." He waves a hand vaguely, "Sensed it too in the…. Y'know. The other place, before I swanned back down below for a new body. Seriously, what's with the overkill though? Did I do something to make you upset? I didn't forget to do something for the arrangement, did I?"</p><p>"One might point out that any angel should try to smite the Serpent of Eden on sight," Aziraphale huffs, turning to face the ruined altar once again.</p><p>"Hey now, at least tell me what I did to make you so angry. I've got a nice couple of bottles from 850. That little vinyard outside Athens, remember? Goat boy’s place? How's that sound for an apology?"</p><p><em> "You got caught!" </em>Aziraphale hisses. "We were nearly discovered! And you—you were… You were too careless! You got everything you deserved!" His eyes are stinging and he regrets every word that blisters on his tongue.</p><p>Crowley pauses, slouches a bit more upright. A dark brow slowly rises over one of those bloody tinted lenses.</p><p>"I never should have listened to you!" Aziraphale rounds on Crowley and closes the distance between them. Pressing a finger alongside that disc on his chest. "This idea of yours was a <em> mistake</em>, I can't believe you tracked me back <em> here </em> you stupid serpent. What if, what if they were <em> watching </em> me! Then I'd have to kill you for real! Do you want to die!? I won't have it, I won't!" He gives Crowley a light shove, scarcely able to see, but the demon takes it in stride. Rebounds like a coiled spring.</p><p>The demon holds his hands aloft, and his voice goes soft and soothing. (He thinks of an ark again.) He doesn’t <em> want </em> to be soothed.</p><p>"Hey, angel, hey, you know these bodies aren't really us—cozy as they are at times. Sure that corporation was broken in just the way I like it—have to grow my hair out again—but this one's loads better. Just look at my elbows! Tidy job, these,” Crowley flaps his arms a few times. “Finally have a decent enough pair that I don't feel like a gargoyle flashing them about."</p><p>Aziraphale gives a wet, hiccuping laugh. Just on the verge of hysteria. "I can't believe you're concerned with, with how attractive your elbows are!"</p><p>"I'm a demon. I'm always concerned with how attractive I am," Crowley says seriously. He lowers his glasses and looks at Aziraphale over the rims, "C'mon. I dare you to tell me these arms are less fetching than the previous model."</p><p>"Fishing for compliments ought to be some sort of sin."</p><p>"See? You can't! They improved on—well, if not perfection, temptation incarnate!"</p><p>"The other ones weren't bad," Aziraphale says in a small voice.</p><p>Crowley pauses mid-flaunt. "Sorry?"</p><p><em> I rather liked the previous ones. </em> "Nothing, oh I'm <em> sorry </em> I was cross with you. I'm really not—" He stops at Crowley's raised brow. "Alright I <em> am </em> cross with you, but I oughtn't be." Aziraphale bites at his lip. "I… you were the one who was discorporated."</p><p>"Oh, come off it angel. No hard feelings. Just an occupational hazard. I'm fine."</p><p><em> I'm not sure I am. </em> "I… I <em> hurt </em> you." Aziraphale doesn't know how else to get it through Crowley's head that he doesn't deserve the demon's friendship. This easy company. <em> I tried to strike you from the Earth. </em></p><p>"You really didn't angel," Crowley's smirk is halfway between fond and insufferable.</p><p>"...I think I<em> wanted</em> to be the one to hurt you," Aziraphale admits, reaching up to grip Crowley by the jaw. His hand adamant and unyielding, and yet his heart is cold with terror at the thought. Even as his blood boils in anger when he thinks of Camael. "I can't <em>stand </em>it," he chokes out. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows the hand holding Crowley fixed in place isn't gentle.</p><p>He can see Crowley's pupils widen just above his lenses. The pain in his stomach intensifies. He's so <em> hot, </em>like he's boiling inside his skin. It's never been so difficult to draw in a breath. He's never felt like he's needed to before.</p><p>"Aziraphale?"</p><p>Crowley's voice is curiously light. Devoid of oxygen.</p><p>His arm trembles. His nails dig into Crowley's skin, like it might anchor him against falling to his knees. His gut squeezes again. Twisting into knots. Not quite an ouroboros. It feels like it wants to spill out of him. Perhaps crawl up his throat. </p><p>"I'm-I'm… <em> sick</em>," it's a startling revelation. Angels aren't <em> meant </em> to suffer physical ailments, but that's the only thing this can be. He's heard about this. Nausea. Aziraphale's hand jerks downward, gripping the side of Crowley's neck, and the feeling increases, concentrates like a knife blade as he sees the crescents left behind on the demon's skin. Tears well up in his eyes and he wonders if this body of his is dying.</p><p>Crowley wets his lips, tongue bright and startlingly pink. His eyes are dark. Pupils flared further open, surrounded by gold on the cusp of melting.</p><p>"No, angel. You're<em> covetous,</em>" there's a reverence there that Aziraphale has only seen directed towards human innovation.</p><p>Aziraphale recoils, as if Crowley delivered a slap across the face.</p><p>"I'm <em> not</em>," he whispers, horrified.</p><p>"Oh, but you are. I can <em> smell </em> it on you. You're rife with it."</p><p>
  <em> I'd rather be diseased. </em>
</p><p>"I <em> can't </em> be," he whimpers, voice tight, broken like a fallen capstone of some ancient megalith. "I'm an <em> angel</em>."</p><p>"Yes," Crowley agrees, his voice a low rumble. Like silk and shadow draped over something red and sleek and slick. "Sso you are." Crowley sweeps his tongue across his lower lip, and the end of it has split in twain.</p><p>“You’re mistaken,” Aziraphale lifts his chin, hands fisting around the hem of his tunic. Crowley shakes his head and starts circling him.</p><p>Aziraphale follows the slow orbit of the demon with his eyes, and he feels something more than naked. Something beyond exposed. Like his spine has been sliced open, his human skin peeled back to reveal something underneath. He isn’t sure he wants to know what’s there. What the demon sees within him.</p><p>“No,” Crowley says again, his voice husky and hot as a match set to kindling. “I <em> know </em> what it feels like, what it tastes like, what it <em> smells </em>like.” Aziraphale pulls at the fabric beneath his fingers. His heart is pumping blood from somewhere in his throat.</p><p>Crowley circles him again and Aziraphale has to fight the urge to shrink into a ball. He is an angel of the Lord. His spine, no matter how weak and exposed, is made of steel.</p><p>“Do you know, angel, what being covetous <em> is? </em>” He can’t tear his gaze away from that mouth, where brilliant teeth worry at the flesh. “It isn’t enough to—” he stops short, expression faltering. He almost looks lost. Scared.</p><p>“It isn’t enough?” Aziraphale asks, after a moment, barely able to hear himself over his heart.</p><p>Crowley’s voice is the broken relic this time. “It isn’t enough to <em> want,</em>” he says the words as if he can’t believe them—not that he believes in anything. Like he’s never considered he might say those words in this exact order in this exact moment in time.</p><p>“It’s not?” Aziraphale feels trapped. Rooted to the spot. He understands why humans tell tales of snakes having the power to hypnotize as Crowley slowly pulls off his glasses. He doesn’t see where the other stows them away.</p><p>“No.” Crowley swallows, his chest visibly inflating with each breath he doesn’t strictly need. “You have to want something you feel… Something that isn’t yours.” The demon starts closing the distance between them. Aziraphale feels his skin shrink beyond bearing. His heart stops, tumbles over itself as he sees how dark Crowley’s eyes are. Truly demonic, black as night. “Something you feel… <em> entitled </em>to.” Crowley reaches out and tugs Aziraphale’s hands away from his shirt hem. “Something,” the demon swallows, almost choking again, “something that belongs to someone else.” He tugs Aziraphale closer, pulling him by the knuckles. He tightens his grip, and Aziraphale doesn’t mind the way it hurts. This close he can see he was wrong about the other’s eyes. They aren’t totally black. Nearly, but not quite. Nothing but an eclipse rimmed with the thinnest edge of gold.</p><p>It’s dazzling.</p><p>“Something,” Crowley says, staring down at their hands, “that you want to be yours.”</p><p>There’s a sound like rusted metal splitting off a shield. Its origin is somewhere in the depths of Aziraphale's throat. Deep in his lungs.</p><p>"Aziraphale," Crowley bites his lip. Eyes so dark the angel wants to fall into them. Drink from the dark ocean depths of them. The demon sucks in a shuddering breath, "Is that how you felt? When you saw someone else’s sword at my throat?"</p><p>Aziraphale whimpers, and finally curls in around himself. Hot and full of shame. "<em>Yes</em>."</p><p>“Tell me," Crowley says roughly, squeezing Aziraphale’s hands even tighter under his. Like he never intends to let the angel go. <em> He’s ensnared you, </em> that quiet voice whispers at the back of his head. <em> Like he’s always intended. Drag you down into the depths with him. </em>“What was it like, to see me laid out before an angel’s holy glory, helpless and defeated?”</p><p>"It was like," Aziraphale swallows thickly. He lifts his gaze and his eyes burn with unshed tears, his mouth twisted into something ugly, “It was like watching you commit <em> adultery</em>.” His hands tremble, and Crowley’s thumb sweeps back and forth along the knuckle of his middle finger.</p><p>He can feel the shake in Crowley’s breath along his cheek, they’re so close now. “Yeah?”</p><p>He stares at the thumb caressing the knuckle on his sword-hand. “I was angry. You’re-you’re so <em> clever! </em> And <em> wily! </em> How could you let yourself get <em> caught </em> by anyone but me?” He lifts his chin, glaring at the demon, but only hunger meets his wrath. “I thought-for a moment I thought it was… intentional.”</p><p>Somehow, Crowley doesn’t judge him for all of this. For his irrational anger. Instead the demon closes his eyes and shivers. Like he’s basking in it, bathing in it. “What else?”</p><p>A tear spills down Aziraphale’s cheek. “I wanted to be your avenging angel,” he confesses. <em> I wanted to defy all of the Host. I wanted to raze Heaven and Hell alike. </em> “I almost-I <em> wanted </em> to… If I could <em> destroy </em> anyone who ever <em> hurt </em> you!” <em> Including me. </em> “I—”</p><p>He stops as fingers press over his mouth, as a forehead rests against his. “Shh.” There’s something pained on Crowley’s face as he pulls back a moment later, but then it’s gone as he opens his eyes again.</p><p>“Let me<em> show </em> you how okay I am,” Crowley breathes.</p><p>Aziraphale stares into the totality of that gaze. Wonders how long the moon will stand in the face of the sun. <em> I want to follow you down into the depths. Somewhere deep they can never find us. Follow you into that darkness where no one can see us. </em></p><p>“Show me?” He wets his lips and glances down at Crowley’s mouth.</p><p>“If you want,” the demon adds, softer. Less sure.</p><p>“Please,” he grips the hand still hovering by his mouth, and Crowley slowly presses him down to the ground. He clutches the gaudy chain with his other hand. The clasp of the medallion pressing into the heel of his palm.</p><p>This isn’t the place to be doing this. There isn’t any place to be doing this, with his hereditary enemy. Especially not here, in this derelict ruin. The place where war was once worshiped.</p><p>But Crowley pushes him down into the bedroll he’d placed only to have somewhere to sit. The demon kneels between his legs, a hand curling up beneath the angel’s chin. He tilts Aziraphale’s jaw and shrinks the distance between them, forked tongue flicking over the angel’s mouth to taste him. Aziraphale gasps, his stomach wound in terrible knots. Something hot pulses between his legs, and he whimpers. As if the denial of being kissed has allowed him to become aware of the arousal pooling through him. Down through his belly, his cock, his thighs.</p><p>Aziraphale whines, and falls the rest of the way onto his back, clutching Crowley by his blasted, attractive elbows. The heavy weight of a metal disc hits his sternum. He shivers as he feels the brush of a nose and lips against the curve of his neck. “We shouldn’t,” something gasps out of him without permission.</p><p>“Probably not,” Crowley agrees between hot kisses against the angel’s skin. “D’you want to—”</p><p>“Don’t you <em> dare</em>,” Aziraphale hisses sharply, tipping into the hands tangled in his hair. That chastened, cowardly thing speaks again, “It’s just, we could get in <em> trouble</em>.”</p><p>“I’m <em> supposed </em> to get in trouble.” Aziraphale shivers at the chuckle against his skin. “Nobody ever has to know,” Crowley says soothingly, a hand gently tugging against Aziraphale’s scalp so he can kiss up along his neck, underneath his chin.</p><p>Aziraphale swallows hard.</p><p>“This is just flesh and skin and sex, angel,” Crowley says softly, barely more than a breath. “‘S like shaking hands. Skin against skin. Just slightly more interesting bits of skin.”</p><p>“Oh?” Aziraphale’s eyes feel heavy as he meets Crowley’s gaze again. “Is that so?</p><p>"Yeah, ‘s so. I can show you." There's something intoxicating about the feeling of air escaping Crowley's lungs and brushing over his mouth. He wishes it were necessary so he could steal the breath right out of them.</p><p>He shudders, and feels a covetous surge of jealousy as the demon’s teeth rake along his lower lip again. “<em>Fuck</em>,” Crowley gasps, mouth falling open, helplessly. “Angel,” he whines. “You <em> have </em>me, you have me, I promise.” Like gravity pulls the moon across the path of the sun, he bends downward and crashes their lips together. Like a meteor settling into a crater.</p><p><em> Nice to meet you</em>, is the dazed thought in Aziraphale’s head as their mouths fit together. It's nothing like a handshake. Like hands holding hands. It's something more. It's like being laid out hopeless and defeated at Crowley's feet. It's like a blade across his throat as a hungry tongue makes its way past his lips to map every crevice within. The angel shudders, his throat vibrating with a deep moan. The flick against the roof of his mouth is like a pair of match heads igniting. Black powder burns through his veins in response.</p><p>Aziraphale blindly clutches Crowley by the shoulders. He wants and wants and wants and <em> covets. </em> He feels Crowley shiver against his chest. Feels the press of unyielding snake coils between them. He pulls away with a sharp, exhaled, <em>'f</em><em>uck</em>,' and then there's the sensation of teeth sinking into the plush skin of his lips. Aziraphale doesn't gasp so much as he sucks in his breath through Crowley's fangs. His focus shrinks to the sharpness there, the cusps and points threatening to break the skin. That pain, the discomfort, the imprint of that crooked dentition feels like, just when he thinks it's about to be too much, when he expects the taste of copper and iron across his tongue, Crowley pulls back. There's a tender press of lips followed by the trace of something wet and soothing. Or two somethings. There's the faintest tickle at the very corner of his mouth before it retreats.</p><p>Aziraphale lets his eyes flutter open, stares at him in wonder. "You're very good at that," he says raggedly. His lips are wet, alive and tingling under the surface. Blood and saliva separated by layers of cells. <em> Just interesting bits of skin on skin. </em></p><p>"Nhyeah, well. Be a bit of an embarrassment of a demon, not being any good at kissing," Crowley says, hiding his face in Aziraphale's neck. There's a bit of delicious friction below as Crowley shifts his hips, and it drives out the flare of covetous heat beneath his skin, the jealousy clouding his thoughts.</p><p>“<em>Satan’s sake, </em> angel!” Crowley’s hand clenches into the scooping neckline of Aziraphale’s tunic. There’s something hot and desperate in the way he hisses just beneath the principality’s ear, “You can’t keep <em> doing </em> that!”</p><p>"You mean this?" Aziraphale asks the question almost frostily and thinks of Camael again. Of the moment she <em> took </em>Crowley. Of scarlet wings that smother instead of shelter. The demon throws his head back with a gasp, hips grinding down helplessly. He feels hard enough to cut stone, even through the layers of extravagant cloth.</p><p>"Shit, shit, shit, <em> shit! </em> Fu-oh<em>, fu-uck!" </em></p><p><em> Ask me for forgiveness. </em>If he weren't already lying down, Aziraphale would have collapsed from dizziness. Aziraphale hisses at the sharp kiss of teeth squeezing down on his neck. He bucks up in return. He wedges a hand between them and grabs the medallion and yanks it over Crowley's head, casting it aside blindly. There's the clatter of metal on stone as it skips across the uneven surface of the temple floor.</p><p>"Tell me," Aziraphale demands. "Tell <em> me</em>." He chokes, unable to bear the disappointment he knows is coming. "Was it… better with a <em> real </em> angel?"</p><p>Crowley lets out a breathy, hitching laugh. His voice drunk and soaked through with something more intoxicating than the goat-herder’s wine they’d shared ages ago. "What are you <em> talking </em> about?"</p><p>Aziraphale bites the inside of his lip.</p><p>"Oh. <em> Ohhh</em>, I get it." Crowley laughs again and presses his grin against Aziraphale's neck. "I've had better."</p><p>He feels a hot claw grasp his stomach and squeeze his guts at the flippant answer. "Don't lie," he hisses.</p><p>Crowley goes still above him. The serpent pulls back, brows twisted. “Eh?”</p><p>“You don’t have to lie to me. I could see her form, her-her resolve.” <em> She was devastating. Like a scourge. She doesn’t need to command a platoon, she is one. Several. A whole company. A division, even. What am I? A poor excuse of an angel. </em></p><p>Crowley brushes his fingers up the side of Aziraphale’s neck, along the curve of his cheek. “Didn’t I tell you?” He whispers the words so quietly. As if afraid someone might hear. “You <em> have </em> me. I wouldn’t want anyone else.”</p><p>“Tell me?” Aziraphale pleads, his voice a small and wretched thing.</p><p>Crowley considers him, and then takes him by the jaw and tilts his head back. “I was waiting for you,” he husks the words against the thin flesh under his chin. A hand slides under his tunic, runs up his thigh and up, until fingertips are pressing against the soft skin wrapped around his belly. “Really peeved that she showed up, honestly.”</p><p>Aziraphale finds it hard to swallow with his head tipped so far. Sharp teeth attack his neck, before the other pulls back with a sucking sort of kiss.</p><p>“I was worried you’d think I’d stood you up,” Crowley confesses. “How stupid, right? Go looking for an angel and stumble into the wrong one. I didn’t realize she was nearby.” Aziraphale can feel the trail of fingers across his skin, slide up his waist along his side. Crowley hesitates for a moment, then seems to think better of whatever he was going to say. He kisses the hollow of Aziraphale’s throat. “It didn’t mean anything, angel. Just a spot of rotten luck. I swear.”</p><p>Aziraphale feels his heart unknot. “Did it h-did you… you didn’t suffer, did you?” His eyes sting again.</p><p>The thumb holding his jaw sweeps over his cheek. “Yeah, it hurt, but there was a moment…” Crowley lets out a frustrated noise as he struggles to find his words. He shakes his head and backtracks, “You saw me lying there, yeah? I could <em> feel </em> you. I could taste the ozone on the air before it struck.” The demon wets his lips and drags his tongue up the column of Aziraphale’s throat, swirls it in the divot behind his ear where the skin of his corporation stretches like a drum skin. “Tastes a lot like you,” the words wash directly over Aziraphale’s ear. Set every tiny downy hair on his body on end.</p><p>A second hand joins the first under the tunic. Aziraphale whimpers as his effort throbs in his breeches.</p><p>“It hurt, don’t get me wrong, didn’t enjoy that part, but… there’s a moment,” Crowley drags Aziraphale’s earlobe through his teeth. “There’s a moment where it feels <em> good</em>. Like finally peeling out of armor after wearing it for days on end.” There’s a rustling in the ether, in the firmament. Like clouds moving across the night sky. “Like getting your wings out for a stretch, only <em> all over.</em>" The demon grinds down against him. “Like being a fruit so ripe and big it stretches past its skin and bursts out… and I could sense you, <em> taste </em> you. Feel you down to the marrow and beyond, angel. Didn’t think of her at all. Just you.”</p><p>All the air in his lungs leaves him in a rush. <em> I know</em>, the thought comes to him in a daze. He <em> knows </em> that Camael didn't mean anything.</p><p>There’s an ache in his chest, like a great weight pressing down on it. Like a siege engine driving over his heart. Just as he <em> knows </em> Camael held no sway over Crowley, he knows that the serpent isn't really his. Whatever the hierarchy below is, however many hands the chain of command passes through, Crowley belongs to Hell—a single, infernal hand at its origin. Just as Aziraphale belongs to one being in the universe.</p><p>He’s only aware of the tears when Crowley starts kissing them away at his cheek. “Hey now,” there’s something so <em> tender </em> in how the demon nuzzles against his cheek. “I’m all right.” Aziraphale whines as Crowley pulls away, but he stops breathing as the demon starts peeling his tunic up over his head. The pale fabric ends up crumpled beside the bedroll. Aziraphale shivers as his upper half is exposed. He looks up at Crowley, utterly captive and spellbound.</p><p>The rim of gold around Crowley’s eyes twists, the same way Aziraphale twists the ring on his pinky when he gets nervous, then it floods the rest of his eyes, corner to corner with gold. Pupils still round and dark.</p><p>
  <em> Gorgeous. </em>
</p><p>It’s too gorgeous for words. Aziraphale’s throat is stuck. He wants to tell Crowley that he’s the loveliest of all Her creations, but there are hands hovering at his breeches. Waiting. Aziraphale nods minutely. There’s a flash of teeth; a warm, devastating grin of joy that the angel has never seen before and it’s gone all too soon. The pull on his laces tests his ability and his resolve to commit the image to memory.</p><p>“Look at you,” Crowley whispers reverently as he peels the last layers away. “Like a fucking banquet.” The demon presses a quick kiss to his ankle before peeling out of his kaftan and the layers beneath. The gorgeous fabrics tossed aside like they’re worth less than Aziraphale’s humble garb.</p><p>Once they’re both naked Crowley settles between Aziraphale’s legs again. He picks up where he left off, holding one of the angel’s legs and starts kissing his way up. Along the curve of a plump calf, lingering at a curiously sensitive knee (how had he not known this about himself before?), and then up higher to the thighs.</p><p>“Unfairly delicious,” he can feel the brush of eyelashes against his thighs as Crowley kisses into the softness of them. He feels the edge of teeth, the curve of a smile as he watches the crown of red hair travel higher. Aziraphale presses a whimper against his knuckles. Every part of him is aching, down to the soles of his feet.</p><p>The demon follows the cord of muscle that connects the inner knee to the crest of the hip. Mapping it with his mouth and lingering where it twists around the inner thigh. Aziraphale whimpers and his legs fall a little more open, and his other hand finds purchase in Crowley’s short hair without permission. He tightens his grip on the other’s hair, “Crowley,” he says the other’s name urgently, but the demon just groans.</p><p>“Pretty, so pretty, so <em> soft</em>… could make a bed and live here.” <em> I’d let you, </em> the angel thinks wildly. Then Aziraphale shudders as Crowley seals his mouth over another patch of skin and sucks the flesh into his mouth. It’s an odd sensation, but an exquisite one. One that lights up the nerve endings on Aziraphale’s skin.</p><p><em> No one else has touched this body. </em> He thinks, that covetous heat suddenly flaring through him again. <em> Neither mine, nor his. No one else can claim to have touched him. </em></p><p>Crowley abruptly shifts his leg so that it’s slung over one slim shoulder, fingers curling into the top of Aziraphale’s thigh. His other hand clutches Aziraphale’s other knee. His thumb circling just inside his knee. Every shift, every brush of lips has Crowley teasing closer and Aziraphale feels tears prickling at the corner of his eyes again, his cock hard and twitching against his considerable belly.</p><p>“<em>Christ, </em> you.” Crowley says with feeling, kissing a swell not three inches down from the gully where leg and pelvis meet, as if he intends to make love to that patch of skin—and that patch of skin only. He ignores the plaintive whimper from Aziraphale, and the tightening pull against his hair only seems to encourage more teeth as he ruthlessly teases that spot. “Look at these-these <em> thunder </em> thighs! Fuck!” Crowley pulls down the thumb of his other hand, the press of it a scorching furrow on his skin. “All heavenly cloud soft and full of righteous, holy wrath.”</p><p>Aziraphale sucks in a breath at the praise, the worship. It sets his skin ablaze.</p><p>The tracing forks of that tongue feel like a promise. He<em> needs </em> to feel it on his cock. "Crowley," he breathes, more urgent now. But Crowley just moves his mouth to the other thigh. Starts just below the knee and works his way up again. </p><p>The length of him twitches as Crowley’s mouth takes another diversion, orbits away from his heavy sex. Aziraphale is quite certain he’s never <em> keened </em> before, but he’s making the sound now.</p><p>“Crowley, Crowley, <em> please</em>,” he can only imagine himself burning like an offering. He can smell himself, the tell-tale scent of arousal hanging like incense in the air. For a wild moment, he wonders if the place could be made holy again. If Crowley laid him out and took him on the altar, would that reconsecrate these grounds? He shivers at the blasphemous thought, but there is no bolt from the blue to scorch him off the face of the Earth.</p><p>“Angel,” is all Crowley moans in response, somewhere from his left hip. Aziraphale presses another frustrated, undignified moan against his fist. For all the good it does him.</p><p>“Tell me what you need, angel,” Crowley rumbles, the sound of it like gravel tumbling along a riverbed.</p><p>“<em>Please</em>,” he whines, utterly desperate. Out of his mind in a way he’s never experienced before. He tugs on Crowley’s hair, unable to voice it. It’s too much. Too filthy, too revealing, too personal, too everything. “I can’t-I can’t <em> say </em> it.”</p><p>There’s the wicked split of Crowley’s smile against that groove that borders his pubis. “Ah, well, if you can’t ask for it, I can’t give it to you,” Crowley teases.</p><p>“You <em> brute</em>,” Aziraphale whimpers with all the conviction as a crumbled scone.</p><p>“Demon,” he counters cooly. “C’mon. Ask me nicely, angel.” Aziraphale shivers as black and gold eyes capture his, and he can’t find his nerve. His spine of steel mislaid somewhere along with his sword.</p><p>“<em>More</em>,” is the only word that drags out of his lungs. Like Crowley is a fisherman, dragging his net along the bottom of the sea. There’s a hungry flick of those eyes towards his effort, like a guttering candle, before they shift back to his face.</p><p>“There’s a lot… that can mean, angel,” Crowley says quietly. Hedging, even now. Aziraphale feels like he might burst out of his skin at the sight of that tongue sweeping over those lips again. <em>Is this what Crowley meant? Does discorporation feel like this?</em> <em>Like being a grape ready to split open on the vine? </em>“What do you want it to mean?”</p><p>He bites the knuckle of his forefinger to hold in a sob. It isn’t <em> fair </em> to ask that. Not when they know what it <em> can’t </em> be. What it can’t mean. “A-anything, please. Need you… more, closer,” he finally manages. Tries not to think of how much fondness he can feel drizzled over the word <em> angel </em> like honey.</p><p>There’s a stillness to the ever-moving whirlwind of Crowley. A moment where Aziraphale sees the not quite-human jaw set, watches as those incredible eyes catalogue every piece of him, down to the last ventricle and venule. Sees that brilliant mind, so cunning and canny, bridge synapses and connect thoughts faster than Aziraphale could ever dream of doing.</p><p>“Closer?” It sounds more like the demon is asking himself, and he doesn’t wait for a response to the quiet murmur. Crowley pulls himself up, drags Aziraphale’s hands away from his mouth and hair, and the angel gasps as Crowley easily pins both wrists above his head in one long-fingered grip.</p><p>He doesn’t fight, has no desire to. His legs are already planted and open when Crowley starts tracing his fingertips underneath his balls, pressing against the soft and sensitive skin there.</p><p>“Is that what you want?” Crowley’s voice is curiously flat, as if he’s holding back. As if he almost can't get out the words.</p><p>Aziraphale nods, pressing into the touch, trying to direct it either further up or down. Not this tortuous in between Crowley’s keeping him suspended in. He doesn’t care what he gets, because this is more than they’re meant to have, and he’ll take this stolen moment with him until the end of the world, until the end of time itself.</p><p>It only takes a thought and Crowley’s fingers are slick and sliding back to his entrance, where he’s sure his pulse can be felt. The fingers feel dreadfully cool, but there’s a faint, clean, pleasant scent on the air. Something botanical, perhaps rosehips? Aziraphale feels indecently idolatrous again as it layers over the smell of sweat and the natural lubricant pooling on his belly, the tip of him slick and sticking to his own skin.</p><p>“Relax,” Crowley whispers, sounding frantic. Aziraphale can feel his fingers trembling as he grinds his slick-covered knuckles in place, keeping everything without. As if he doesn’t dare trespass. “Relax, relax, relax,” the demon hisses, and Aziraphale only realizes that it’s turned into a mantra after he releases a long, deliberate breath, his wrists going limp underneath the vise of Crowley’s hand. He draws in another breath, one hand curling loosely.</p><p>“Crowley?”</p><p>The demon stops chanting immediately, looks up at Aziraphale with those blown-out, black hole pupils full of something like guilt and a little like fear. Just as Aziraphale opens his mouth to speak, Crowley flashes him a smile. Devastating and fragile, a papered over wound. Wax wings offered to a god. “Just-Just lie back, yeah? I’ll make you feel good. I’ll take care of everything.” With that he bites his lower lip and deliberately presses a finger inward.</p><p>Aziraphale forgets whatever he was about to say because reality has just shifted. It’s changed to a place where he has intimate knowledge of his hereditary enemy. He knows what it feels like to have one of those elegant fingers clenched inside his arse. He knows what they feel like, trapping his wrists to the ground. Knows what they feel like squeezing his knuckles and caressing his cheek.</p><p>And another moment later he knows what those fingers feel like laced in his, as Crowley shifts his hand and pins the back of his hand into the bedroll instead, in a gesture that undoes him more than the gentle curl of the finger inside him.</p><p>It feels <em> safe </em> and secret and sure. Like they’re the only two beings on the planet. The weight of it, the strength of it is more than Crowley’s sleight frame should be capable of, but that’s rarely stopped the demon from doing the impossible. He’s only distantly aware of the other finger fluttering at his hole beside the digit already inside him. His entire focus has shifted to the touch of their palms. The bite of knuckles caging his. A moan bubbles up through his chest, lonesome and wanton.</p><p>He bites the edge of his tongue as the demon presses curiously at his rim with the other finger. “This alright or—? No.” The pressure eases, as Crowley reads his expression. “Right, I’ll just, ngh.”</p><p>Aziraphale wets his lip and clings to the demon’s hand. He shifts the other forearm trapped beneath his wrist and grips it tight. A clear gesture of submission. Crowley lets out a noise that sounds a bit like <em> gnngh, </em>and bends down to kiss and bite the crease above Aziraphale’s elbow. The angel laughs, and he wishes he could kiss the inside of Crowley’s wrist from this position, kiss all the way up to those new joints that he prefers.</p><p>His lashes flutter closed as that finger inside him crooks deliciously over a spot that feels like it holds all the raw materials to make lightning. His cock twitches between them, untouched, and he lets out a truly pathetic sound in the back of his throat.</p><p>“Ff--ah--ck,” Aziraphale twitches in place, as Crowley wickedly repeats the ‘come hither’ motion over and over, and it feels like sparks fly through his body all the way down to his toes. His hand squeezes his own wrist hard enough he suspects there will be an imprint there.</p><p>Crowley is all hard planes and sweat and sheen above him. Aziraphale’s chest shudders and he looks up at his—his <em> hereditary enemy </em> with what he knows must be half-drunk eyes. “S-some handshake,” he says around a shaky exhale.</p><p>Crowley laughs and presses his forehead against the other’s shoulder, and he presses a second finger against Aziraphale’s entrance again. It presses in beside the first. A glorious, wonderful sensation of intrusion that makes Aziraphale aware of how stretched he is now with two fingers thrust up into him. “Did say they were… more interesting bits of flesh, didn’t I?”</p><p>It’s unbearable to be so full and have the other’s hand so still. Aziraphale brushes his chin against the curve of Crowley’s neck to satisfy an itch there, but finds himself lingering—pressing his nose into the short hair that smells of freshly cut grasses laced with the faint scorch of charred resin. He inhales deeply to fortify himself, and then he flexes, immediately gratified by the gut-punching groan he feels through his chest and the way those fingers draw further inside him.</p><p>There’s an insistent heat pressing against his hip. Like a length of flaming coals or burning steel. Crowley squirms against him like the snake he still is on some level, in time to the thrust of his fingers.</p><p>“G’nna make y’feel so good, angel, promise. Promise, <em> promise</em>.”</p><p>Aziraphale nods mutely stupidly. “Yes, <em> please</em>,” his much abused thighs quiver as Crowley suddenly stops the thrusting motion to flick over that spot three times, then he starts his thrusting again. Establishes a pattern of alternating thrusts and delicious flicking. “Promise me,” Aziraphale chokes, “promise me no one else.” He feels that covetous heat coursing through him, and feels a sudden burst of precome join the wetness at his hip. It sounds like glass breaking somewhere inside Crowley’s throat. Aziraphale presses on, relentless. “Promise me, promise me, just you and me, promise me you’ll be alright. No more archangels, no more—” Aziraphale stops his babbling as he feels the thinnest tendril of umbral matter across his palm.</p><p>Except it isn’t across his palm, not really. </p><p>He can't hear anything, not even his own heartbeat or the pulse of blood in his ears. His attention has been shifted to another plane of existence entirely and it is silent there. A complete absence of sound.</p><p>The sort of quiet that only exists before a big bang.</p><p>The angel realizes, with a start, that he <em> had </em> sensed Crowley, after his discorporation. Just briefly. His aura projects a constant mantra of <em> don’t look, you don’t see me</em>. Like a shadow moving behind the moon. Something that can only be made out against the dark if you know where to look. Where to find the gravity well that essence tucks itself into. Without the dead star-heart to him, Crowley would be utterly shapeless, anchorless.</p><p>Aziraphale feels the touch of that shadowy essence again. Cool and gentle, shielding him from the shrapnel embedded underneath. Aziraphale cautiously expands his brilliance, lets it light all of Crowley’s dark corners from a distance. The broken glass and twisted metal energy glimmers like stars hiding behind stormclouds. There’s a hiss like the radio signals of a particularly unmusical planet that vibrates somewhere in the angelic equivalent of his magnetosphere, but Crowley doesn’t do more than flinch. Aziraphale wonders how he translates to Crowley in this form. He’d forgotten what this was like. To taste and feel the vibrations of the universe with senses far beyond human hearing and understanding. He also knows why Crowley did this. It’s proof.</p><p>Their bodies don't matter—they’re just flesh.</p><p>And, yes, Crowley had been something harmonious once, something that could sing layers and layers of light. And somewhere underneath the crackles and sizzles Aziraphale thinks he can feel a remnant of that, an echo, but Crowley is still here. And he is still beautiful.</p><p>Aziraphale realizes, too, that there’s something <em> vast </em> about Crowley, as he lazily lets himself unspool from the gravity well he’s coalesced around like a spindle. Though, perhaps disparate or dilute is more accurate, but in any case he’s <em> enormous </em> and Aziraphale feels small and pale and new compared to it. It’s like hovering on an event horizon, and he <em> wants </em> to get swallowed up by it.</p><p>There’s a burst of vibration-light-sound. The deep thrum of all sorts of radiation in something that would perhaps manifest as embarrassment in a human corporation. And just as Aziraphale reaches out, just to see if they can create auroras or something new and altogether better—he’s suddenly crammed back into his human body, and he shouts as all his nerve endings light up from being reconnected. Suddenly, brilliantly aware of Crowley sheathed within him.</p><p>The demon trembles over him, a lean thigh pressed against his soft one. “S-sorry,” Crowley can’t seem to look him in the eye. “This still okay?”</p><p>There’s an indescribable sense of loss, but Aziraphale can almost taste the shame and self-loathing radiating from the demon. “Yes,” he breathes, because it is. He locks the hurt away somewhere between the useless muscle that powers his corporation and the pericardial membrane surrounding it; grateful that Crowley let him look on even the barest glimpse of his true self, if not the heart of him.</p><p>The sensations feel so much smaller and yet more grounded. On the cosmic scale, compared to the vastness of their other selves, it truly isn’t that different from a handshake. But it's also so wonderful and better and<em> human, </em> and, oh—if the glimpse of Crowley’s true form proved that he was unharmed (or, well, no more harmed than his preexisting wounds)—this is the sweet confirmation that Crowley is <em> alive</em>.</p><p>And then Crowley moves his hips and Aziraphale sees auroras anyway, gasps at the almost painful, overwhelming <em> feeling </em> of it all.</p><p><em> “Fuck</em>,” it sounds like the demon sobs the word into the crook of his neck. Trembles where he’s still pushed into Aziraphale up to the hilt.</p><p>He can feel his erection throb between them. It feels like he’s aware of every hair on his body, every cell running through his bloodstream. His nerves feel like exposed threads of silver, like solder grounding lightning.</p><p>The air feels sharp in his lungs, like talons. The smell of sex and ancient blood rites and decaying leaves and <em> Crowley </em> all feels like <em> too much. </em> The taste of his own tongue, the enamel of his teeth, and the aftertaste of the demon crowd his senses for attention.</p><p>The desperate squeeze of Crowley’s hand on his and the feel of something hot and wet on his neck is the only thing keeping him from splitting apart back out of his corporation. Aziraphale finally finds bravery enough to move, and wraps a leg around Crowley’s, and he feels a flinch that is familiar and new.</p><p>It’s too much, after vacating all senses, after abdicating from the physical realm, but Lord Almighty—</p><p>Crowley thrusts his hips twice and locks into him with hot, pulsing spasms. Aziraphale feels very much like an overripe grape. Bursting apart with a spray of juice, a different sort of full body release as his spend coats both their chests. The taste of radio signals on his tongue and vibrating deep in his bones. Somewhere in another dimension he feels his wings stretch gloriously, and there’s the faintest brush of a shadow against them.</p><p>Crowley lies on top of him, still twitching and looking wonderfully debauched. Wrung out and spent. Perhaps even <em> thwarted.</em> Slowly, the demon relaxes the death grip on Aziraphale’s hand, but he doesn’t let go. Just tugs the knuckles down to his mouth and presses a closed-mouth kiss to them. There’s a few dead leaves stuck to the demon’s hair somehow, and the angel reaches up shakily to pull them free.</p><p>There’s a wistful rub against the knuckles of Aziraphale’s hand, and Crowley opens his mouth to reassert the status quo, and Aziraphale can’t bear it. The demon doesn’t get past the first syllable. He looks like he’s caught the wrong end of a pike at the distress the angel <em> knows </em> is on his face. So Crowley doesn’t say anything. Just wraps around Aziraphale and presses a desperate kiss against his neck.</p><p>Aziraphale reaches blindly, and drapes the silk kaftan over Crowley’s body.</p><p>They can’t bring themselves to move or speak, so they lie motionless and entwined. It is only when Crowley has drifted off that Aziraphale fusses to reach for his pack and his heavier cloaks, still pinned by the weight of the demon he doesn’t let slip out of him. As he layers the wool and furs over the kaftan, the angel’s eyes feel heavy, and for the first time in his whole existence he understands the appeal of sleep.</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks to both Nymphalis_antiopa and Lazulibundcake for beta-ing this chapter! Also I have decided there needs to be a break here so there will be a lil epilogue</p>
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<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Thou Shalt Not Make Unto Thee Any Graven Image</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>
  <i>I’d string myself up in the stars just to watch the mystery of you unfold forever.</i>
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    <p>
  <em> <strong>Romans 6:12</strong> Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>At some point, as Crowley sleeps, Aziraphale comes to the realization that—as delightful and intimate as it is to be so closely entwined with the serpent still soft within him—there are decidedly <em> less </em> pleasant aspects to cuddling and sleeping immediately after orgasm. There was a great deal of <em> stickiness </em> that has now become <em> tackiness</em>. Aziraphale carefully considers the miracle before he risks it. Rationalizes it away as banishing the influence of evil and subtly combating sin as the remains of sweat and semen vanish. Crowley’s body ripples above him, and Aziraphale’s breath catches in his throat.</p><p>It’s more comfortable after that, and he tries not to clutch too tightly at the serpent’s hips. He closes his eyes and revels in the sensation of skin against skin. Of Crowley’s cock still inside him, as close as two bodies can be. He listens to Crowley breathe as he sleeps. Flushes as the demon’s body goes through cycles of arousal, hardening and softening and hardening again. His own prick, trapped between their thighs, grows thick, and he starts to fantasize about brushing the short hair back. Peppering kisses along Crowley’s cheekbones until he wakes up. And then, well, what would be the harm in indulging…</p><p>Aziraphale wants to cry when Crowley shifts in his sleep and finally slips free.</p><p>He stifles a gasp—badly—and he’s never felt so <em> empty</em>.</p><p>His heart stutters for several beats. Ties itself into terrible knots, but Crowley just nestles closer. Legs tangled around Aziraphale’s thighs and head tucked into the space under his chin. He strains his gaze as he looks down at the other, trying to catch a glimpse of that handsome face. He’s so unbearably dear and precious like this.</p><p><em> Foolish snake, don’t you know how easy it would be for me to smite you right now? </em>But Crowley had fallen asleep within minutes, remained asleep for much longer than that. Enough for the shadows to pale and turn blue as the sun circles round behind the horizon.</p><p>He wants to live in this moment between night and dawn, before he has to think about what comes next.</p><p>He drags his thumb along the groove of Crowley’s spine. A soothing motion, and the cool slide of silk above his hands lulls him into something like meditation.</p><p>There’s another shift and one of Crowley’s hands reaches out in his sleep. Ravenous and grasping. The angel has to fight a smile. The terrible inventor of Original Sin—a closet cuddler. No doubt he’d be horrified at such undemonic behavior if he were properly awake.</p><p><em> Funny. You’ll let me see you sleep, at your most unguarded, your absolute softest, but you wouldn’t let me look at the whole of you. What other wonderful secrets does your true form hide? </em> He tries not to take it as rejection that he was only given a mere glimpse, a fragment of sound. Underneath that susurrus of <em> don’t look this way, don’t look this way </em> and static and disharmony… there had been a different drone. An echo of something beautiful and pure. Familiar, comforting vibrations distorted.</p><p>“Beautiful,” Aziraphale whispers. <em> I’d string myself up in the stars just to watch the mystery of you unfold forever. </em></p><p>Crowley makes a token, sleepy noise of protest. As if he can sense the praise in his sleep, and Aziraphale can’t help but break into silent laughter, his chest shaking violently. There’s another groan of protest, this one more alert.</p><p>“Mmhh… Stop, stop, <em> stoooop.” </em> The demon shifts down a bit, so that he’s further under the cloak and petulantly rubs his nose into Aziraphale’s chest. “‘S like a bloody earthquake under me.”</p><p>“I do apologize,” Aziraphale says, barely containing a chortle, still causing the serpent to shake.</p><p>“‘S upsetting. That’s what that is. Trying t’sleep here. You make for an awful pillow.”</p><p>Aziraphale is done for after that and he throws his head back and laughs helplessly. Tears form at the corner of his eyes when Crowley scowls up at him with the expression of a wet cat.</p><p>“Awful,” that face scrunches up into a pout. Aziraphale stops laughing, the oxygen immediately seared out of his lungs. He has the urge to swoop down and kiss the other soundly. So strong it paralyzes him under the weight of it. Crowley doesn’t seem to notice. Sniffs once and then slowly pushes himself upright.</p><p>“I <em> am </em> sorry,” Aziraphale says genuinely, reaching out to let his hands rest lightly on Crowley’s forearms. “You can go back to sleep if you want.”</p><p>“Nah,” Crowley shakes his head. “‘M awake now. No point in <em> sleeping </em> when my…” The serpent gives a slow sleepy blink and stutters impressively, as if his throat suddenly collapsed in on itself. “‘M not gonna be able t’get back to sleep,” he concludes after his vocal detour.</p><p>"Sorry to disturb,” the words come out soft and timid.</p><p>Crowley brushes a hand along his arm, blindly reaching for the kaftan now pooled behind his hips. He half-heartedly drapes it in front of his belly, looking away. It doesn’t do much for his modesty, but Aziraphale supposes it’s a little late for them to be considering that. The quality of the light has changed. It’s a little stronger now. The sky less navy and shot through with pale blue. Aziraphale swallows as he traces the way the first hints of sunlight paint their way up Crowley’s leg.</p><p>“Well,” it ends up being a sentence. Aziraphale closes his eyes as Crowley slithers to his feet, mourning the loss of contact anew. The wool on his shins feels heavy.</p><p>Aziraphale wonders if he should get dressed, but Crowley just stands, silk in hand, turned to one side. Facing the altar that hasn’t seen use in centuries.</p><p>"Was it… good for you?" There's an aura of nervousness about the demon. Tension in every line of his body despite the ridiculous question. Aziraphale can just follow the bob of his throat as he swallows.</p><p>"As if you don't know," Aziraphale scoffs.</p><p>Crowley just wobbles his head from side to side in a non committal gesture. "Best not to assume anything. Everyone has different likes and dislikes… y'know." He avoids the angel’s eyes, plucking at the edge of the kaftan.</p><p>Something twists fondly in Aziraphale's chest. "There's no need to be embarrassed, I appreciate your… experience." He feels a brief flare of covetous heat through his veins. Tries to push aside the jealousy that is beneath him. Tries not to imagine the mortals who must have found unimaginable pleasure in the serpent's den.</p><p>"Experience. Yeah. Right." The demon's voice is tight.</p><p>"…Crowley?" </p><p>"I've got <em> loads </em> of experience! Whoever heard of a demon being a <em> virgin!?" </em>The color of his face rivals his hair.</p><p>Aziraphale can't help the laugh that spills out of him. The indignant, frantic expression levied at him is just too much.</p><p>"Shut up," Crowley growls, going even redder, somehow.</p><p>Aziraphale can't explain the heady, rushing swoop of joy in his stomach. Can’t explain why he beams up at Crowley, utterly unabashed and unashamed now in his nakedness.</p><p>Those yellow eyes go wide and then there’s a flurry of silk, long limbs fighting their way into tight sleeves and fingers clutching the garment shut at his navel. Aziraphale’s smile wilts. There’s a slow, inevitable sinking feeling in his belly. He reaches down for his fur-lined cloak.</p><p>"This was a bad idea," Crowley says, jaw flexing tightly.</p><p><em> I know that</em>. Aziraphale turns slightly and frowns, "I don't want to hear that."</p><p>"I know," Crowley says; it's almost an apology before he sets his jaw again, "I think you <em> need </em> to hear it right now."</p><p>“Why?” Aziraphale hisses through his teeth. He starts searching for his clothes, tossing his tunic over his head, quite aware that it’s probably backwards and inside-out.</p><p>“You <em> know </em> why!”</p><p>“Crowley—”</p><p>“Stop. Don’t <em>‘Crowley’ </em> me on this one.” He shakes his head, his bangs scattering across his brow. “We can’t—do this again.” He gives the angel a reproachful look.</p><p>He lifts his chin in response, “What happened to ‘Nobody ever has to know’?”</p><p>Crowley grimaces, “Angel—”</p><p>“Don’t <em>‘angel’ </em> me. You said it yourself. It’s just… It’s just flesh and skin and sex,” his voice drops off, anger evaporated in the wake of something even more awful.</p><p>“Angel, Aziraphale, if we keep… If we <em> kept </em> doing this… someone would notice, <em> eventually</em>. We have to—” Crowley wets his lips, “We have to stop.”</p><p>
  <em> He’s right. </em>
</p><p>Aziraphale hates it. “What if we were very, very careful?”</p><p>The demon shakes his head, gaze fixed somewhere over Aziraphale’s shoulder. “I told you, right? I can <em> smell </em> you. I reek of you.” The snake closes his eyes and wraps his arms around his chest. “Not in a way I can pass off as something else.”</p><p>“Like you could with Camael.” Aziraphale says the words flatly, anger simmering beneath the surface of his skin. “Should I be concerned that an Archangel has <em> fans </em> in Hell?”</p><p>“D’you think this is easy for me!?” Crowley’s eyes are exposed again, full of a different type of desperation from the night before. “For—”</p><p>Aziraphale feels his nostrils flare, and he feels a vicious stab of satisfaction as the righteous bonfire of anger inside him <em> twists </em> and Crowley gasps.</p><p><em> “Fuck!” </em>Those hips jerk against the empty air. Aziraphale’s skin ripples in a wave of goosebumps as he sees Crowley’s cock spring to life. He tries to keep his breathing steady, but his hand creeps between his legs, to press the heel of his palm against the shaft of his own sex. He doesn’t let up, and he feels the same awful satisfaction as Crowley continues to twitch as if struck by the lightning Aziraphale had called down from the sky.</p><p>A wicked grin creeps onto his face as Crowley succumbs, sinking down onto one knee.</p><p>"Nngh… Azira-Aziraphale!” He can just see a fresh bead of sweat at the demon’s temple. Those eyes are dark and drunk once more. <em> “Please,” </em> the word rolls down his spine, over his shoulders like something decadent and indecent.</p><p>“Please what?” His voice is a touch breathless around the edges. There’s a spike of heat up his gut as Crowley clutches his knee, and it looks like his knuckles are trying to split out of his skin.</p><p>There’s a high whine lodged in the back of the demon’s throat. Aziraphale wants to pin Crowley to the ground and see if he can stick his tongue far enough inside to taste it.</p><p>He feels dizzy himself, blood singing with heat and <em> power. </em> “Please <em> what, </em> Crowley?” he presses again when he doesn’t get an answer. It’s easy. It’s so <em> easy </em>to cling to the covetous thoughts. The memories of every time someone else got to be familiar with Crowley in a way he never could. A hand on a rail-thin shoulder, an arm around a lithe waist, a sword against a slender throat.</p><p>“Nngh! Please ‘s enough,” Crowley finally gasps. “Mercy, <em> please—” </em></p><p>There’s another gasp as Aziraphale finally forces himself to let go of those thoughts. It’s harder than it should be for an angel. The sound of their labored breathing fills the silence.</p><p>Crowley is the first to move, getting back to his feet and pulling on the rest of his silks and linens in a rush, starting with his black leggings. “Bloody Heaven,” his voice is stretched thin. He's such a mess he tries to pull the dark linen tunic on over the kaftan before shrugging out of it with a curse.</p><p>Aziraphale allows himself the briefest smile. The barest upward twitch of his lips. “Well,” he says, and it becomes a sentence again.</p><p>“Menace, that’s what you are,” comes a grumble from underneath red and gold silk.</p><p>“I think I’ve proven that we don’t need to touch one another to bring each other pleasure.”</p><p>Crowley splutters for several moments. “But I—but you—I can’t!! That’s not—”</p><p>Aziraphale coughs delicately and gestures to the bulge at the hem of his tunic. The demon growls in the back of his throat, “That’s not the same and you <em> know </em> it! ‘S not <em> fair</em>.” There’s a helpless flex of those fingers. “How d’you expect me not to, not to <em> touch </em> you?”</p><p>“There must be <em>something</em> we can figure out,” Aziraphale breathes, already thinking of the possibilities. His mind helpfully supplies an image of Crowley chained and manacled in place.</p><p>Crowley looks over at Aziraphale wretchedly. "Is that really enough?" His eyes are still slightly glazed over. The pupils darker against the budding dawn. "After this?"</p><p>Aziraphale blocks out the subsonic rumble buzzing at his skull. That constant radiation that whispers <em> don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me. </em></p><p>It isn't. Not really. Not nearly enough, but it's alright. Aziraphale can learn to be content with it. And they have miracles which can surely help bridge the gap into something closer to what it ought to be.</p><p>Aziraphale smiles at Crowley, unable to suppress the satisfaction there. "I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement."</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Huzzah! It is finished!! I hope you liked it Nox!! It's sort of a "as happy as it can be" ending at this point in their history.</p><p>Also did I mention I have Camael's entire fall from grace plotted out?? In which Michael convinces her to roll up to hell with the intention to fall as an undercover heavenly agent only. (If Crowley sauntered vaguely downward, Camael shows up in a flaming chairiot to take over.) As it turns out, the loyalty doesn't quite stick and thus Camael is lost to Heaven. And starts dating Dagon probably.</p>
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